(CHICAGO – September 16, 2009)  Chicago Climate Exchange® (CCX)® announced today that it has signed an agreement with the People’s Bank of China Research Institute of Finance and the China National Petroleum Corporation Assets Management (CNPC-AM) to establish a new center that will conduct research on financing of low carbon initiatives, including large-scale demonstrations of market-based methods for addressing environmental challenges in China and improving energy efficiency. The new center will be called the China-U.S. Low Carbon Finance and Development Research Center.

“This initiative is further evidence that China and the United States can work together, using financial innovation, to help address greenhouse gas emissions, and lead in the global effort to confront climate change,” said CCX Chairman and founder Richard L. Sandor.

“We look forward to working together to provide critical research in the new and important area of low carbon economic development, and to being a vital component of the educational process in China,” said People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan when he met with Sandor in Beijing last month.
 
Sandor will serve as the first Chairman of the research center, which will sponsor and initiate joint research and issue periodic research reports. Sandor is a research professor at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University where he teaches a course on environmental finance.

In September 2008, CCX, CNPC and the City of Tianjin opened the Tianjin Climate Exchange (TCX), a joint venture and China’s first exchange established to design and market environmental products. TCX will serve as the exchange platform for the new Center. 

Sandor also serves as Executive Chairman of Climate Exchange plc. Climate Exchange plc owns CCX, including the CCX-subsidiary Chicago Climate Futures Exchange® (CCFE®), as well as the European Climate Exchange (ECX). Climate Exchange plc is a publicly traded company listed on the AIM division of the London Stock Exchange (CLE.L).

About Chicago Climate Exchange and Chicago Climate Futures Exchange

CCX is an Exchange whose objectives are to apply financial innovation and incentives to advance social, environmental and economic goals. CCX, which began trading in 2003, is the world’s first and North America’s only legally binding, rules-based greenhouse gas emissions allowance trading system, as well as the world’s only global system for emissions trading based on all six greenhouse gases. CCX members are leaders in greenhouse gas management and mitigation, including offset providers and offset aggregators, and located throughout the United States. CCX members derive from all sectors of the global economy, including the public sector, and emissions reductions being achieved through CCX by major utilities, corporations, cities, states and counties, are the only reductions in North America being achieved through a legally binding compliance regime, subject to independent third party verification provided by FINRA and price transparency. The founder, Chairman and CEO of CCX is economist and financial innovator Dr. Richard L. Sandor, who was named a Hero of the Planet by Time magazine in 2002 for his founding of CCX, and in 2007 as the “father of carbon trading.”

Chicago Climate Futures Exchange (CCFE), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chicago Climate Exchange, is a CFTC designated contract market which offers standardized and cleared futures and options contracts on emission allowances and other environmental products. Clearing services are provided by The Clearing Corporation, the only active independent futures clearinghouse in the world. Market surveillance services are provided by the National Futures Association, the industry wide, self-regulatory organization for the U.S. futures industry.

CCX, a U.S. corporation, launched its trading platform in 2003. In 2005, CCX launched the European Climate Exchange (ECX), now the leading exchange operating in the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. Since 2006, both CCX and ECX have been owned by Climate Exchange plc, a publicly traded company listed on the AIM division of the London Stock Exchange (CLE.L).

About Tianjin Climate Exchange

TCX is a joint venture between The China National Petroleum Corporation Asset Management Company, Ltd. (CNPC-AM), Tianjin Property Rights Exchange (TPRE) and Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). TCX is China’s first integrated exchange for trading of environmental financial instruments. TCX will design and develop standardized financial products that will advance the stated environmental goals of the 11th Five Year Plan of China to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions and water pollutants, as well as the enhancement of energy efficiency, among other initiatives. The City of Tianjin is a special development zone designated by the State Council of China as a center for financial innovation, and the development of an emissions exchange is a component of the Binhai Comprehensive Report Plan approved in March 2008. TCX headquarters are located on Financial Square in the heart of Tianjin’s new Binhai economic zone.